MACY, my baby

So, since we got back from our cruise in November, Macy has been quite the challenge to put to bed. Before that, I've NEVER had a problem at bedtime. She has been an easy going girl. You put her in her bed, say goodnight and she would go to sleep, waking in the night, rarely. After we got back, I gave her more love and attention because I'm sure it was an adjustment for her. She started needing to be rocked or something until she was asleep. This was ok for a little bit but now it is stressing me out. I'm really dreading nap time and bed time. She moved herself to a big bed and said she didn't want the crib anymore, so we took it down. I decided today that we needed to let her cry herself to sleep. She keeps waking up at night and won't go back to sleep without effort on our part. We are all exhausted. So I let her scream today and she fell asleep by the door but only slept for 30 minutes. Same routine at bedtime tonight only we decided to put up the play pen so at least when she crashed she would be in bed and hopefully sleep through the night. Brynn was a screamer at bed time for a LONG, LONG time. I hated it and was so glad when Joel was always so easy, and then Macy. Now I'm back to screaming child and I really don't like it. Any other suggestions? Is it really worth it to lay down with your child every night and every nap time and every time they wake up in the night? What happened?